terrible speller

I have a confession: I'm not a good speller. Now, I'm pretty darn good at all that other editing stuff. But my weak spelling may just be my downfall. The test comes tomorrow. We shall see.

the morning after

It's the morning after Christmas. And the only people who should be out early are the bargain shoppers. (There were about 100 in line this morning at MicroCenter this morning. My guess is that they made a mad dash for the 47-inch HDTVs, which were priced at $799.99 for a mere 25 minutes.)

It's the morning after Christmas. And I am at work. I'm one of the few in the office today. My bosses are gone. My actual tasks are few. And despite trying to dawdle as much as possible, I arrived at work early. Sigh.

oh where, oh where...

...has my favorite Sharpie gone?

I can't find my Sharpie. Have you seen it?

why don't you just shine already?

My brain is stalled. I have three partially written posts with no endings. My mind is full of incomplete thoughts. As soon as I think them, I hit a wall and investigation stops.

I'm in a place before the beginning of something. I sense change and movement. I suspect, but I cannot see. I'm in darkness, waiting for the sun to rise. Only then may I choose my path.

The hard part is the waiting. I'm antsy. I don't want to stand still and wait. It's uncomfortable. It's trying. It stresses me out. I want to know now. I have an urge to start walking even though I lack the ability to see what lies before me.

What I really want is an aerial view. I want to see each path's start, middle and--most important--end.

The sun needs to wake up, because I can't sleep.

come celebrate!

My roomie and I are having a party this Friday at our apartment. And if you know us and know where we live, you're probably invited. Outsiders are welcome. Just give me a call before you extend the invite.

What we're celebrating:

• countingpigs! She's came in late this Saturday and leaving on Dec. 10 (which is her birthday)
• Birthdays! The list: my roomie, countingpigs, my roomie's boyfriend, kcprogrammer's sister, and AM (if you didn't happen to see her for her birthday) and anyone else who wants to claim a November/December birthday
• Pre-Christmas! Meaning my roomie and I may have put the Christmas tree up by then
• Cambodia! countingpigs and I will--I hope--have pictures and stories about our adventure in Cambodia
• Me! This will be a great chance to see me (and it's probably been awhile since you've been able to do that)
• Work! While not something to celebrate for most of us, I just heard that aulurienne got a promotion at one job (meaning that she may be able to quit her other job)
• Moving! With aulurienne and Big-Bold-D moving in above my roomie and me, I'm sure you'll all want to take a tour of a floor plan nearly identical to mine and a mirror of Big-Bold-D's old pad

We'll have:

• music (but feel free to bring your own--no Christmas music, please)
• food (cake and ice cream at the very least) you're more than welcome to complement it with your own selection of favorite snacks and drinks, especially if you want alcohol
• fun (board games, perhaps G-man trying to swallow a teaspoon of cinnamon) please bring any other entertainment that you'd like
• ample seating
• a hot heater
• a clean bathroom
• and hopefully pictures of the ancient temples of Angkor and of me looking like a terrorist waging a losing war against sunburn

neighbors again

Big-Bold-D and aulurienne are moving in above my roomie and me. I'm so excited to have them both as neighbors, again, but for the first time together.

Fall 1999 to spring 2000: aulurienne and another friend from high school take up residence in the dorm room across the hall and one down from me. My roomie transfers to KU and by luck ends up in the room directly across from me.

Fall 2000 to winter 2001: aulurienne and her roommate end up in the on-campus apartment that is across the hall--as well as next to--my apartment with my roomie.

Summer 2004 to summer 2006: Big-Bold-D and G-man take the the apartment across the hall from my roomie and me.

Winter 2006: Big-Bold-D and aulurienne move in to the apartment above!

I'm giddy. I get to have my friends near me once more. I was feeling the loss of friendship a little bit of late. I don't leave much room in my weekends for socializing these days. And after the boys moved out, my opportunities to visit them and their visitors evaporated. Friendships take work--work that I realize that I haven't been putting in my fair share of, and I'm feeling the effects of it. So, I'm happy for this new opportunity.

i'm back, i'm tired

Jet lag sucks. A day's worth of time in the air to get home ain't all that grand either.

But the trip itself was great. Being with countingpigs was great. The food was great.

The US Department of Agriculture wasn't great though when they took away my yummy treats. :(

I've copied all my pictures to my computer. My little lappy only has 1.5GB of space left on it. I'll need to do a bit of backup work.

I'll post them when I can. This week is going to be crazy.

Countingpigs will actually be coming into town next weekend. Her birthday is on the 10th. And I was out of the country for my roomie's birthday. So I'm thinking a party is needed. Maybe either next Sunday (because countingpigs gets in late on Saturday) or the Friday or Saturday after (she leaves the following Sunday).

Oh, and the Thanksgiving Day dinner with kcprogrammer's family and my family went well. He did a lot of work to prepare for it. I was quite impressed.

OK, must run. More later--hopefully with pictures

in two days

In two days I'll be on a plane home. I'll be happy to be home with my family for thanksgiving. I'll also be sad to be leaving this experience.

I'm not the type to move very far away. Chicago seems like a world away. So, if I can't think of moving to a city that's a mere two hours away by plane, I probably won't be packing up for a relocation to a foreign country any time soon. That said, I have the travel bug.

I love learning how other people live.
I love seeing the sunset behind oceans and seas.
I love listening to the song of an unknown language being hummed all around me.
I love tasting all the different foods.
I love taking pictures of the places I go.

I miss my life and the safety I find in being able to fall into set patterns of waking, working, eating, being.
I miss my people. I miss the security from hugs from my family. I miss the comfort from kcprogrammers hand interlaced with mine. I miss the insight that only my roomie can provide. I miss the connectedness of knowing the inside jokes that come from being a part of my friends' daily lives.
I miss my food. I love the food I've been eating these past two weeks, don't get me wrong. And I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity. But I'm really craving a bean burrito right now.
I miss my bed, my bathroom, my cell phone, my computer and all my comforts.
I miss my life, but I don't regret the decision to leave it for a time. My live is waiting. Two weeks is a short time that, when thinking of the life on hold, can feel like a long time. But most of my life will wait for me, almost as it was when I left.

And in two days I'll be back.

last night's dinner

Leftovers
Originally uploaded by theCallowQueen.

I'm in Singapore. The food is tasty and very different from my usual. Here, I often prefer to eat first and ask later.

I did know that these were frog legs, though, when I plopped them into my soup. They're kept alive in tanks like lobsters or in big plastic bags. This, of course, didn't really whet my appetite, but it didn't hold me back, either.

"It tastes like chicken," Countingpig's friend joked with me.

He's right. The meat from a frog's leg tastes very much like that from a chicken's. The texture is smoother though.

But onto one of my favorite meats: pork. The pork here is amazingly tasty. It's either they're using a different kind of pig or a different kind of flavoring--or both. For lunch it was steamed pork soup dumplings. For an after-dinner bite it was a crispy pastry filled with egg and pork floss. Floss is very tasty, but it's like hot dogs or Jell-O--you don't want to know how it's made or what parts of the animal are used in it.

Oh, and for dessert we had these fried pastries that, when dunked into the juice from our bean curd dessert, tastes very much like funnel cake. Yummy!

test

I'm playing with Blogger's new beta interface. It offers some new abilities at the price of losing many of my HTML and CSS tweaks. I need to figure out whether I can integrate them into the new template.

Oh, but look, I can tag my posts.